VERY Small Island Start

So I have a very small "island" (technically its a peninsula, but there's a mountain tile blocking me from the rest of the lands) start that has been kicking my butt lately, and would love some advice.

I've discovered AH and Iron Working, and am dismayed to find that there are no resources outside of fish, rice, and clams. The peninsula is only one tile thick in most places, meaning no matter where I build my first city it will be mostly water tiles. There are a few hills for mining, but no rivers and the only forests are on the hills (so I have to chop them down if I want mines, which hurts my city's health).

Other than my capital, there really isn't much room on the peninsula for a second or third city. I could squeeze in a few more, but they will have almost all water tiles and have to share food resources with other cities to grow. There are larger islands to the East, and a continent lies to the West, but I will have to build a fleet of ships to reach them, and I worry about maintenance costs.

I've tried to play this map twice but ended up quitting in disgust both times after other civilizations beat me to the Great Lighthouse/Temple of Artemis combination. Any advice or suggestions for how I should go about playing this map? I'd love to give this map a good run, since it's historically accurate to start off the Japanese on an island. I've included a picture of the whole island (it didn't take too many turns to map it all) in case you want to try your hand at dotmapping.

Well all I can say, hard beeline to GLH and settle every half-decent island in sight. Forget about ToA or Iron Working. Early galleys also help you to escape your little "paradise" to the main part of the continent

Think positive, at least barbs won't threaten to conquer your cities

Silu said:

Well all I can say, hard beeline to GLH and settle every half-decent island in sight. Forget about ToA or Iron Working. Early galleys also help you to escape your little "paradise" to the main part of the continent

Think positive, at least barbs won't threaten to conquer your cities

Click to expand...

Even better, it is set on Raging Barbarians, so at least this is one map where I don't HAVE to get the Great Wall.

Can you post the initial save? Besides making it easier to do the dotmap, I'd like to shadow this map. Regarding cities: you could settle a second city where the hut is, just so that it runs 2 scientists permanently. I wouldn't do it, though. If all that separates you from the rest of the continent are the mountais, ship a settler past them and it's almost a normal game. You won't get colonial maintenance because it's technically the same continent.

Hell yeah. I'd LOVE to try this one out. Please post a save! That's a GP farm if I've ever seen one.



Colonial maintenance shouldn't be too much of an issue unless you've really spread your empire out vastly. This is a case for a powerful but small empire. Then again, I've only seen the initial start screen

Ignorant Teacher said:

Can you post the initial save? Besides making it easier to do the dotmap, I'd like to shadow this map. Regarding cities: you could settle a second city where the hut is, just so that it runs 2 scientists permanently. I wouldn't do it, though. If all that separates you from the rest of the continent are the mountais, ship a settler past them and it's almost a normal game. You won't get colonial maintenance because it's technically the same continent.

Click to expand...

Ask and ye shall receive.

Whoa my whole life is just flashing before my eyes!

Oh wait, that was just Quick speed... On a Huge map

I monkeyed around with that game, my initial comments should hold true. Remember to spawnbust the islands you settle on to avoid nasty Raging Barb surprises. Actually this start is rather nice. Some slight spoilers:

Quick, huge? Never mind.

what difficulty is this on ? I didn't see that in the info anywhere...maybe I missed it.

edit: also, what is the water setting ? high/medium/low ?

cas

I think it was Prince.

cas said:

what difficulty is this on ? I didn't see that in the info anywhere...maybe I missed it.

edit: also, what is the water setting ? high/medium/low ?

cas

Click to expand...

Prince difficulty.
Huge custom (3) continents map, should be normal water and normal speed (is normal the new quick?). I've turned off a few of the victory conditions since I was trying to practice domination victory and didn't want to worry about time or a space launch. It's basically sandbox mode.

For future reference, what speed and map size do most players use on these forums? Epic and Normal?

Speed/size varies for many players.

I prefer Standard/Large with Normal/Marathon speeds

blitzkrieg1980 said:

Speed/size varies for many players.

I prefer Standard/Large with Normal/Marathon speeds

Click to expand...

I prefer normal speed too. Somehow this game got set to quick - no wonder my research was so fast! Well that explains that mystery.

So hmnmn...there a way to tinker with the map to make it normal speed? Just seems like an interesting start but as other people are pointing out, I'd like it to be a normal speed game too!

bioelectricclam said:

So hmnmn...there a way to tinker with the map to make it normal speed?

Click to expand...

You can find instructions on TMIT's guide.
Edit: Basically what you have to do is to open the World Builder on the first turn. When you're there, save it and leave the game. Open the file in a word processor and simply change the MaxTurns=330 to MaxTurns=0. Then you either double click the file (with BTS closed) or open it with the option "Play a Scenario". Please note that, with such method, you'll find out who the AIs are. If you want to do it in a cleaner way, please refer to the guide I linked.

I started to play the save. Unfortunately, I won't finish it because my PC can't handle so big a map, but I'll see if I can set a functional empire before the AIs win. It's on Prince alright, but it's also Huge and Quick so I don't know if I'll be able to do it. If only we were the Dutch...

I wouldn't go for both the GLH and the ToA. Just stick with the GLH for this game.

As mentioned colonial maintenance is only for islands that have > 3 (not sure about 3 exactly) on them. Early on islands basically double your domestic trade routes and sailing is useful anyway.

Raging Barb Galleys could be a problem so both Monarchy and Metal Casting are priorities.

Settle what you can on the mainland then start sending settlers to the islands. GLH and Colossus are key wonders so try and get copper if you can.

Looking at the initial picture I'd settle 1S of Kyoto and then where the warrior is now. I would probably hold off on the warrior city until a little later though; get on the mainland first, then an island city, back to the mainland until you cannot settle anymore peacefully, then the 2nd isthmus city, the back to the islands.

If you do get the GLH I would settle at least a 2nd island city soon after before continuing on the mainland.

Try this save...more diff/speed options, as per thread above...
Save in worldbuilder folder...play as scenario

file now attached...
can't attach WB save, so created Prince/Epic???

Silu said:

Well all I can say, hard beeline to GLH and settle every half-decent island in sight. Forget about ToA or Iron Working.

Click to expand...

This. Toku isn't Industrious, and there's no Marble. Take the wonder that's worth more. Find Bronze on another island and settle there to get metal.

Silu said:

Early galleys also help you to escape your little "paradise" to the main part of the continent.

Click to expand...

You forgot to mention the plush offshore foreign trade routes they open up, but you were clearly thinking of it.

I would go for the Colossus as well. If the production is going to be garbage at least make the sea tiles valuable. Make sure to make a considerable effort exploring and settling.